For the first time in more than half a century, the Odell residence is quiet.
There are no squeaks and pops from the electric motor that powered an "iron lung" pumping air in and out of Dianne Odell's body.
Woman in iron lung dies during power outage
Jenny Jarvie, writing for the LA Times, finds the silver lining:
Good experience at StrangeKiss Art Toys
Last week, I took advantage of a sale at Strangekiss Art Toys and ordered Erick Scarecrow's Dizign. The figure arrived quickly, plus, StrangeKiss threw in a sticker and bonus Trexi figure. Very pleasant surprise.
Wish Come True open blindbox, X-Games vinyl figure
Continuing my campaign against blind boxes, I note that Fugitive Toys has opened blind box Wish Come True figures on sale.
They also have the X-Games vinyl figure by Tristan Eaton.
Vampire, Jackalope Trophy Heads
"Andy's" gallery is full of creepy sculptures. Via.
And here's a Jackalope trophy head. Details here.
Yeah, putting the secret base on Hoth probably wasn't the best idea
Matthew Iglesias:
Hey, to defend my geek cred, I never said that the Hoth fortress wasn't awesome. Awesome, however, is not the same as practical. I'm pretty sure that making the place warm enough for humans to live in, lubricant not to freeze in X-wings, etc. would leave a huge, detectable heat signature. Also, building your fortress of material that's prone to cave-ins, etc., especially when your military equipment presumably isn't terribly easy to replace (it's not like they can waltz into the Coruscant shipyards and order up a new fleet of planes stat) doesn't seem like a very good idea, at least to me.
Reason #23 I'm looking forward to Castle Crashers
From the developer's blog: "The Weapon’s Frog in the game serves as a type of weapons locker where all weapons you find in the game will be stored. Each weapon will be inside of this frog and the player will be able to go inside view his current list, and switch to a weapon at any time."
Iron Giant made out of Lego
A terrific creation by Peter Aoun. There’s more photos in his Flickr gallery. I also like his Lego Bat Grappler.
While I was researching Iron Giant Lego creations, I stumbled across this fanmade set that I initially thought was an official product.
*Buy Iron Giant dvds and toys at eBay and Amazon.
Revolt of the Jungle Monsters
Kind of hard to go wrong when you start with a title like that. You can read Terrors of the Jungle #6 here.
A Seinfeldian argument against gay marriage
From a commenter at Independent Gay Forum:
Via.
Here's the problem with gay marriage: It used to be that if you were over 40 and unmarried, people thought you were gay. If gay marriage becomes acceptable, now, if you're over 40 and unmarried, people will think it's because you're unattractive! :(
Via.
Funny story about how much Thurman Munson hated Carlton Fisk
This is an anecdote from Dan Okrent and Steve Wulf's Baseball Anecdotes:
Thurman Munson, who died in the crash of his private airplane in August of 1979, was a great catcher, a pretty good hitter, and a team leader. He was also something of a mule, as this story told by former Yankees PR man Marty Appel attests:
Munson did not like being compared with Boston's handsomer, more stately catcher, Carlton Fisk. One day Appel quite innocently listed in his press notes, AL ASSIST LEADERS, CATCHERS: FISK, Boston 27; MUNSON, New York 25. Players rarely read the press notes, but on this day, Munson did. "What's the idea of showing me up like this?" he demanded of Appel. "You think for one minute he's got a better arm than me? What a stupid statistic!"
Munson stormed off. Then, during the game, he dropped a third strike, recovered, and threw to first base to get the batter. The same thing happened in the next inning, and it began to dawn on Appel what Munson was doing. A short time later, Munson dropped another third strike, thereby passing Fisk as the league's leader in assists by catchers.
Great story, although not necessarily exactly true as explained in this excerpt from the book Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends.
Photo found at Flickr.
UCLA Medical Center gave organ transplants to Japanese gangsters while law-abiding Americans died
John M. Glionna and Charles Ornstein for the LA Times:
I've seen the disdain some of UCLA's high and mighty doctors show toward their average patients. I'm going to eagerly await developments on this story.
UCLA Medical Center and its most accomplished liver surgeon provided a life-saving transplant to one of Japan's most powerful gang bosses, law enforcement sources told The Times.
In addition, the surgeon performed liver transplants at UCLA on three other men who are now barred from entering the United States because of their criminal records or suspected affiliation with Japanese organized crime groups, said a knowledgeable law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The four surgeries were done between 2000 and 2004 at a time of pronounced organ scarcity. In each of those years, more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the Greater Los Angeles region.
I've seen the disdain some of UCLA's high and mighty doctors show toward their average patients. I'm going to eagerly await developments on this story.
Superman vs. Wonderwoman
Just one of many political cartoons by Vedeze. Via.
Relatedly, religion is sure taking a beating in this election cycle.
$40 million later, NY Times finally able to use hyperlinks
Jackson West for Valleywag:
Last week, Publishing 2.0 noted that the New York Times was finally using hypertext links in articles in a meaningful way. Welcome to the 20th century, Grey Lady! The Times invested in WordPress, which is used for the site's blogs, but the rest of the product? That required an expensive upgrade to CCI NewsGate, which comes with a $40 million price tag and is "very time consuming to integrate, especially across multiple properties," according to an editor at another major market daily.
Murderous bunny robots
Programmed 2 Destroy by ~cronobreaker on deviantART
RoBot doesn't like bunnies by ~cronobreaker on deviantART
Found while investigating this Threadless t-shirt design.
Brand Upon The Brain
Can't vouch for the content, but the dvd
and cd covers are certainly striking. Here's the intriguing trailer:Here's a positive review. And here's several videos of Isabella Rossellini graphically demonstrating the sexual habits of insects.
800-word Harry Potter prequel is one of 13 card-sized works to be sold at a charity auction
Waterstone's Booksellers Ltd. says the cream-colored A5 papers — each slightly bigger than a postcard — were distributed to 13 authors and illustrators, including the boy wizard's creator J.K. Rowling, Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing, novelist Margaret Atwood and playwright Tom Stoppard.
Rowling used both sides of her card to hand-write a prequel to her seven-book Harry Potter saga, while Lessing penned a story about the power of reading. Stoppard wrote a short mystery and Atwood was due to fill out her card remotely using a robotic arm controlled by computer linkup.
Link. My money's on Amazon outbidding all comers.
"An Inconvenient Truth" the opera
The AP:
*Previously: Al Gore was perfect as the villain in Speed Racer.
First it was the film and the book. Now the next stop for Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is opera.
La Scala officials say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera on the international multiformat hit for the 2011 season at the Milan opera house.
*Previously: Al Gore was perfect as the villain in Speed Racer.
Cover to Action Comics #1 made out of Lego
By Julian Fong. Here's the Flickr link. Here's his site. Via.
*Also: When the Fantastic Four fought Mickey Mouse.
Oh Gizmo! tentacle monster t-shirt
On sale here, blogged at Oh Gizmo!
Interesting, because Oh Gizmo! held a design contest, but then decided they didn't like any of the designs and decided to hire a pro instead.
Olympic tickets to be embedded with bearer's personal information
"In a move unprecedented for the Olympics, tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies are embedded with a microchip containing the bearer's photograph, passport details, addresses, e-mail and telephone numbers." Link. Via.
Photo: President Bush chest-bumping an Air Force Academy graduate
From the Denver Post:
President Bush and U.S. Air Force Academy graduate Theodore Shiveley of Plano, Texas, bump chests after Shiveley received his diploma at the AFA graduation ceremony on May 28, 2008. (AP | Charles Dharapak)
High-res version and more images here. Via.
Parody poster for Evil Dead: The Musical
/Film has posted some great posters for Evil Dead: The Musical, including this parody of the poster for Hairspray:
Here's a couple of songs from the musical (NSFW language)
Here's a couple of songs from the musical (NSFW language)
Toycutter Updates
Recent updates at my action figure, miniature, and designer toy customizing blog include:
-Ghost Rider Munny
-Fallout 3 action figure
-How to dress up a kaiju model with lots of cool effects
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